


guns

by fandomslut1998



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depressed Luke, Depression, Flashbacks, Gay, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insomnia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mentions of Suicide, Nightmare Fuel, Nightmares, Running Away, Sad Luke, Sorry again, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, appearance vs reality, bipolar luke, dad luke, dad michael, happiness, insomniac luke, luke runs away, not really tbh i kinda forgot to put it in, sorry - Freeform, sort of, the other boys aren't here, they're actually hella confusing, this could be a lot better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomslut1998/pseuds/fandomslut1998
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i'm trying to sleep, but i can't when you all have guns for hands</p><p>{tøp}</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>lowercase intended for description</p>
            </blockquote>





	guns

**Author's Note:**

> once again, this is for school, so… no smut. sozzz
> 
>  
> 
> this is basically four paragraphs of angsty luc-ass

Luke shouldn't have left. He knew it, his family knew it; hell, even the dog knew it. There hadn't been a particularly good reason to move his family from rural Minnesota to San Francisco. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision; he had quit his job one day, come home and started packing, and they left within the week. When they arrived, they stayed in a hotel room for weeks until he found a house only a few hundred dollars above their rent budget. There was no security, no grounds for uprooting everything they had become comfortable with. But then again, this wasn't the first time this had happened - only a few years ago, the family had relocated to Minnesota from Boston, and to Boston from Buffalo, New York before that. However, this was the first time that Luke hadn't looked into getting a new job before moving, and as the money slowly ran out, he began to question his choice. Sure, he was known for being spontaneous, but the fights with his husband were getting more and more heated over smaller and smaller things… the bills weren't paid, then he forgot to pick up the kids from school, then they ate cereal and Kraft Dinner for a week because there was no more grocery money for that month. At that point, Michael got so angry that he left for the entire day, only coming back once it got dark because he had no friends in this city to stay with. Luke was left with a crying three-year-old and a whiny five-year-old for hours, and their teenager hadn't stuck around to help, preferring to smoke up with his new friends. After a sleepless night, Luke had finally left to go job-hunting. Michael smiled at him for the fist time in weeks as he walked out the door, kissing the younger kids goodbye, but Luke didn't smile back.

 

As he walked down the still-unfamiliar street, Luke kept going even when he saw the rare help wanted sign in the window of a store. Every time he did, he gave himself another mental punch. He was supposed to be looking for a job, no matter how unimportant the position, so he could support the family he had left at home. He was supposed to be fixing this, to mend the situation he had created that only got more dire by the day, but he kept walking. What had began as a purposeful journey turned into aimless wandering, and as the shadows grew longer and lights started winking on in windows as he passed, Luke didn't stop. He walked, and he walked, and he walked. He walked until his feet were blistered in the Converse that were meant for Michael's smaller feet, he walked until his throat was sore when he breathed, he walked in circles when he ran out of city to cross. When he passed a hooker on the corner, he ignored her advances not because he was keeping his loyalty to Michael, but because he was too drained to do anything but focus on putting one foot in front of the other. When he passed a homeless man, he didn't give him food not because he had none for himself, but because he was devoid of emotion, and to show empathy for one would be to give in to his human desire to go home, which would mean facing the monster he had created. When he got tired, he slept.  When he got thirsty, he drank. But he did so not because he cared for himself, nor for those he held responsibility for, but rather because these were things he had to do. When he slept, he did not rest; when he drank, his thirst was not quenched. His dreams were nightmares filled with guns and bloody children and fear; his water was filled with acid that burned a hole in his stomach until he threw it up. His happiness was not gone, because it had never been there; ever since before the first move, Luke had felt empty. He had hoped, with each new beginning, to find a place where he belonged, where he could settle down with Michael and, at the time, their only child. But he got restless easily, and found himself growing increasingly unsettled. So, he convinced Michael to leave for Boston, and for a while he felt better. He had only needed a change of scenery, and now he could be the family man he wanted to be. But the restlessness came back, and Michael stayed with him as he moved them again, this time with two children. By this time, he had figured out that maybe this wasn't the regular type of wanderlust; if that was the case, shouldn't that have been sated during the European travels he had embarked on during his gap year after high school? He was flighty, he knew that; that was part of the reason he and Michael had always connected so well - Luke had been the ADHD-afflicted class clown while Michael sat behind him quietly, cracking smiles at his friends' antics and being conscious of when Luke started to go too far. It was inevitable that they had started dating halfway through senior year, and the fact that Michael had waited for Luke while he was off travelling even though they had technically broken up was what pushed Luke to propose at the tender age of 20. Having little money at the time, they lived in Luke's childhood bedroom while getting their degrees. After they got married, the fighting began: at first it was the cute couple-y issues, like what movie to watch or which ice cream place to go to after pizza date night, but that had escalated into bigger arguments about when they would move into their own place, about paying insurance, even about naming eventual children if they decided to go with surrogacy rather than adoption. Luke's parents kicked them out three years after they got married, and they moved to Buffalo to really start their life together. Sometime around the move, Michael had slowly declined from Luke's voice of reason into a meek, submissive husband; however, one of the issues he was adamant about was that they would go through the adoption process to gain children, because he had been adopted himself and wanted to save others from a lifetime of loneliness the way he had been. He fought tooth and nail to get his kids, and Luke gave in to the glimpse of the old Michael he saw in that fight - the Michael that had been the shy kid everywhere but with his childhood best friend. So, they adopted their eldest, and that made Michael content with whatever curveball Luke threw at him. Every time they moved, Luke agreed to another kid because he wanted Michael's eternal happiness, but they simply couldn't afford to mend their relationship with a new family member this time. Back in Minnesota, Luke had begun to suffer from sleepless nights spent next to his lover. Michael was settled, the kids were settled, they had even gotten a dog… But Luke wasn't settled. The insomnia had gotten so bad that Luke missed days of work to sleep in, and Michael had threatened to take him to a doctor unless he started following their routine again. So Luke tried to fix it; he ran away, just like he always had, and now he was sitting on a curb in a strange city with his head in his hands, no money and, as far as he was concerned, no family. After all, he had abandoned them; he thought that there was no way Michael would take him back. They were in their mid-30s now; they couldn't just kiss and make up like they used to. Luke was unhappy. If he couldn't sleep, then he couldn't dream, and if he couldn't dream, then life had no meaning. He blamed a lot on Michael, but Luke knew that he was at fault for many of their troubles.

 

Luke's nightmares started to bleed into his waking thoughts. He laid in bed in the new house while the kids were at school and Michael was looking for a job like he should've been and listened to Blink-182 songs on repeat, thinking of getting away. When he did sleep, he was plagued with the fear of failure. Everywhere he turned, someone he loved needed his help, but on the end of his arms were guns instead of hands, and he watched as his husband and children bled to death in front of him. Sometimes, the dream was reversed, and whenever someone tried to help him, he got a bullet through his heart and saw their terrified faces when they realized what they had done. Michael thought he was depressed, but Luke said he just needed to find motivation. Michael would turn away and mutter to himself angrily, not having the courage to call his husband out on the lie, but Luke caught what he said once, and couldn't help but feel a pang of self-hatred shoot through him at Mike's dejected "I thought I was your motivation." He should have been, and Luke knew it. He sometimes wondered if he was still in love with his spouse, but quickly dismissed the idea. Of course he was, he had never been in love with anyone else. And he was happy, he just needed to find his footing again after this move, that was all. As much as he tried to convince himself of that, he knew that Michael was right, and he thought that his family deserved better than him. Luke felt like he had become nothing more than a burden, so he didn't feel very regretful about running away with no warning. As a child, we learn that running away from our problems isn't the answer, but it had worked for Luke before, so why shouldn't it work again?

 

Luke thought he was running towards his happiness, but his happiness saw his picture on the news three months later through tired eyes and screaming children and a missing husband with a gun in his hand and a hole in his head. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you found the hollywood undead reference you're my favourite ok


End file.
